The Mandarin Week-by-Week Challenge

This will be the third week of my Mandarin Challenge. How am I doing? Not too badly, I guess. Of course, the more words that I add each week, the more they'll inevitably get garbled in this brain of mine, but mei guan xi. Something will stick, I hope. Care to join me in the challenge?

The Mandarin Week-by-Week Challenge

Okay, so as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm trying to learn some words and phrases in Mandarin. This week's words are a little easier than last week's phrases -- I love you, mother, father, and yes (to permit).

I did a little surfing online and found this helpful tip regarding the tones. When saying the flat tone (1), it's like singing a note. For the rising tone (2), raise your eyebrows when saying the word. For the falling and rising tone (3), drop your chin and then raise your eyebrows when saying the word. For the falling tone (4), yes, you guessed, drop your chin. I found these tips to be helpful amid the butchering of the Chinese language that I had managed to do in one brief afternoon. I'm sure that I could make more progress if I enrolled in a class, and I plan to do that once our daughter is a little older. For now, I'm just braving it solo. Feel free to jump in and join me in the Chinese linguistic gymnastics!

Ni e ma?

Today I took the big leap -- I'm attempting to learn some Mandarin. I decided that each week between now and our referral, my goal is to try to learn at least 3 words or phrases starting here on Haiwang's Chinese Learning Blog.

AdoptionBlog.com lists a few other resources, but I find that Haiwang's blog seems to suit me best.

Getting started is the hardest part (well, aside from trying to learn the most complex language I've ever heard, let alone, spoken). So I whipped out the dry erase board to make it official; there's no avoiding the poster-sized Mandarin word chart; it's like those paintings in an old haunted mansion...you know the ones where the eyes appear to stare at you from every angle. Egad! Haunted by Mandarin...that's a new one.

During the Wait: Learning to Speak Mandarin

I do believe learning to speak Mandarin Chinese is going to be a challenge for me, but I'm willing to give it a shot and learn a few key phrases, songs, etc. Not only is it a difficult language [by the fact that it's completely different that anything I've ever spoken or written or even heard spoken for that matter], but it consists of 4 tones...and I thought that the Southern dialect was complicated. This is a great resource for the easily-intimated, linguistically-challenged, such as me. Take a listen and have a go at it. So will I be considered trilingual if I learn Mandarin, and baby signing? Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.